Mobile is the fastest growing advertising channel within digital marketing. In 2016, mobile ad surpassed the 50% mark for total digital marketing ad spending. Put another way: businesses are spending more on mobile advertising than they are on all other digital spending combined. With so much money being poured into mobile marketing, it’s helpful to take a look at some of the potential budgeting pitfalls that await the uncareful marketer.

Basing decisions on bad data

Deciding on how to allocate mobile marketing funds is always a tightrope walk in a windstorm. It’s impossible to predict perfectly what’s going to work and what isn’t. On the one hand, you will have hunches which aren’t based on any data whatsoever and success will depend on how much faith you put in that hunch. On the other hand, you also need to take a hard look at the numbers and not be blinded by instinct. Any choice could end up being disastrous. But in the end, you give yourself the best chance if you have solid data backing your decision making. If your data is inaccurate, insufficient, or cherry-picked to support an already arrived at conclusion, your analysis-based decisions are nothing more than shots in the dark.

Not making ROI a priority

This sounds so obvious it doesn’t need to be mentioned but many businesses do make this mistake. At the end of the day, a good mobile marketing campaign will need to have a positive impact on your bottom line. Don’t put money into channels that are trendy and sound good unless you’re seeing at least a decent return (as in actual money) for your investment.

Underinvesting in tried and true channels

For whatever reasons, the tried and true mobile channels such as SMS (text messaging) aren’t invested in as much as they should be. Part of the problem might be that it seems unoriginal and brands are always trying to stand out. But there’s a reason SMS marketing and other core channels are at the center of every major company’s mobile efforts: they work. And because they work, they should command a proportionately high percentage of your mobile marketing budget.

Underinvesting in new and upcoming channels

On the other side of the coin you have businesses that don’t invest enough in the future of the channel. For instance, chatbots are an up-and-coming trend in mobile marketing and if chatbots turn out to be half what people claim they will be, early adopters of the technology will be richly rewarded. So while you don’t want to go chasing every trend, you should also be forward-thinking, able to see past hype while still being able to recognize the potential in new channels and strategies

Failure to track metrics and adjust frequently enough

The world of mobile marketing changes at a very rapid pace and what was working last year may not justify the amount you’re investing in it today. Looking at the key performance indicators and reevaluating your strategy annually or even semi annually simply isn’t sufficient any more. You should have someone constantly crunching the numbers, looking for patterns in what’s working and what’s not and constantly reallocating the marketing budget across various channels to ensure that your mobile strategy is as effective as it can be.